Percutaneous in situ or on-site laser therapy treatment of tissue such as tumors and in particular malignant breast tumors can be more readily performed today because tissue abnormalities such as tumors are being detected at earlier stages. Tissue abnormalities such as breast cancer and other cancers or tumors detected in early development can be effectively treated or destroyed using an ablative agent such as laser energy without conventional surgery.
Interstitial laser energy treatments of tissue (such as tumors) including malignant tumors (such as breast, liver, brain, and neck tumors), have been in development for more than a decade. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,169,396, 5,222,953, 5,569,240, 5,853,366, 6,603,988, 6,701,175, 6,865,412, 7,041,109, and 7,171,253 disclose various apparatus and methods for conducting interstitial laser energy treatments of tissue (such as tumors). Certain of these patents disclose a laser probe and a thermal probe for conducting the interstitial laser energy treatment and related temperature measurement. Certain of these patents also disclose a probe holder configured to hold the laser probe and the thermal probe. However, such probe holders are very limited in the relative positions and fixed geometries in which they can hold the laser probe and the thermal probe for conducting interstitial laser energy treatment. Certain of these patents disclose a probe holder configured to hold the thermal probe at a single fixed distance from the laser probe and in a single plane with the laser probe.
It has been determined that known probe holders do not fully facilitate interstitial laser energy treatment of: (a) body parts of different sizes and shapes (such as breasts) containing the tissue to be treated; (b) tissue to be treated (such as tumors) of different sizes and shapes; (c) different areas of the body containing the tissue to be treated; and (d) variations in the tissue surrounding the area to be treated. These known probe holders also do not enable operators to properly account for variations in the tissue surrounding the area to be ablated. Accordingly, there is a need for methods and apparatus for interstitial laser energy treatment having a probe holder apparatus which facilitates the above variations.